Sign up for the free Helena This Week newsletter and stay in the loop on Helena city government, public school meetings, business news and upcoming entertainment and events. Sign up 01/19/2025 Helena Public Schools received one plan for the future of Hawthorne Built in 1921, Hawthorne Elementary School is one of the oldest buildings in the Helena school district. The local school board voted June 10, 2025, to close the school. Credit: JoVonne Wagner / MTFP The former Hawthorne Elementary could be the site of a new neighborhood community center, according to Helena school officials. During a school board meeting last week, Helena Public School District Superintendent Rex Weltz updated the trustees on the status of the district’s request for proposals regarding the future of two decommissioned buildings, the May Butler building and Hawthorne Elementary. Over the last two months, Weltz said, the district received only one proposal for Hawthorne that could result in a long-term lease agreement: a two-year plan to create a “multi-purpose” center at the Madison Avenue property.  “We’re a little excited about this,” Weltz said at last week’s meeting.  The project, currently called the Hawthorne Community Center Helena, would be operated by a nonprofit organization and provide spaces for community use, similar to Bozeman’s Emerson Center for Arts and Culture, Weltz said.   “It’s an arts place, it’s an office space, it’s for ballet, whatever,” Weltz added. “It’s a community use area which I think is highly valuable.” The district declined a request from Montana Free Press to release a copy of the proposal, including the applicant’s name, while the project is under review. Weltz said during the meeting Monday that the proposal will be reviewed by the district’s lawyers before the facilities department makes a formal recommendation to the trustees.  “I’m excited that we’re not going to sit on a building that’s going to sit there and be dormant,” Weltz said. “We want activity, and we want liveliness in the neighborhood.”  Last June, the school board of trustees voted to close Hawthorne Elementary to address the school’s declining student enrollment and about $4.6 million in maintenance the district could not afford. Another district facility, the May Butler building at 55 S. Rodney St., which previously housed the administration, was also closed. However, the district didn’t receive any proposals for that building before the deadline earlier this month. In 2024, school officials declined two proposals to use the building as a homeless shelter. Public Notice  The League of Women Voters of the Helena Area will host a panel discussion about how to run for local public office on Tuesday, Jan. 27. The event will be at the Lewis Clark Library’s large community room from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Participants can expect a discussion on candidacy experiences, followed by a QA with local officials, including Sen. Laura Smith, Rep. Luke Muszkiewicz, Helena City Commissioner Ben Riby, Helena Mayor Emily Dean and former city commissioner Kali Wicks. For more information, visit the LWVHA website here.  The city administration offices, municipal court and transfer station will be closed Monday, Jan. 19, for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Capital Transit buses will be in operation, but its office will also be closed. Those who have garbage normally picked up on Monday will need to put their containers out Tuesday by 7 a.m.  5 Things to Know in Helena  During a city meeting last Monday, local immigration advocates and other members of the public urged the commission to codify the city’s policy on federal immigration enforcement. The city began drafting the resolution in December, but the recent death of Renee Good in Minneapolis prompted the local groups to press the issue. As is, the resolution would prohibit racial profiling and ensure that local police don’t aid federal authorities. Additionally, the advocacy groups Montana for Palestine, Waking Giant and Prickly Pear Housing Alliance asked the city to amend the resolution and require local police to request that federal officers identify themselves and not wear masks. The current language calls for the city to only “attempt to request.” The commission plans to continue the discussion during a meeting on Monday, Jan. 26.   Last week, the Helena School Board of Trustees voted to adjust the district’s attendance boundaries across all grade levels. School officials had advocated for the change to address the city’s growth and provide equal educational opportunities for all students. Beginning next school year, students new to the district and enrolling in kindergarten will adhere to the updated boundaries, while current students can remain at their current schools. Read the full story here. Helena Public Schools this spring will ask the community for input about student cell phone use, according to Superintendent Rex Weltz. At last week’s school board meeting, Weltz informed the trustees that he’s received several inquiries from parents and families advocating for either a ban on cell phones in schools or no ban at all. He said the district will make a recommendation to the board by next school year. Carroll College received a $1,115,000 gift from the Simperman-Corette Foundation, according to the school’s press release. The gift will support Carroll’s safety by funding security technology across the campus. The enhancements will include high-quality cameras monitoring campus entry points, residence hall entrances, parking lots and other high-traffic areas. The committee tasked with determining how to spend money from the Montana Opioid Abatement Trust met last week. About $69,200 remains for opioid remediation projects, according to the committee, and applications will be accepted until March 1. Last October, the MOAT approved two area applications, one from Florence Crittenton Family Services for $94,280, and the other from St. Peter’s Health Foundation for $174,835.  Say What? While helping MTFP local reporter JoVonne Wagner cover now-adopted tweaks to Helena’s school attendance boundaries this week, I asked district officials something I thought was a simple question: Can you share detailed maps of the current boundaries? Their answer, which shocked me: That isn’t actually something we have. For context, digital maps — or geographic information systems, if you want to use the fancy phrase — are a near-universal part of 21st-century governance, used by government entities ranging from small towns to federal agencies to keep track of their work and explain it to the public they serve. Lewis Clark County, for example, maintains a public GIS portal with digital maps showing everything from city building permits and zoning districts to recycling drop-off sites and licensed restaurants. A similar portal for the city of Bozeman includes a map of current street construction projects. A system published by Yellowstone County maps local cemeteries down to the names of specific people buried in individual plots. Elsewhere in Montana, almost every other large school district — Billings, Bozeman, Missoula, Kalispell, Butte and Belgrade — publishes maps of its school attendance boundaries through its website, many of them interactive maps that let parents, students and other interested observers zoom in on block-by-block views of the attendance boundaries dividing their neighborhoods. Helena officials, though, pointed me to a system that lets parents look up their local schools one address at a time. While the system’s search page says results will include “a helpful street map,” the results for more than a dozen addresses I looked up this week came back with nothing but text. While the district’s official materials did include some rough maps of boundaries for Capital and Helena High Schools, they were zoomed out so far that I couldn’t identify precise boundaries in several stretches in central Helena as I tried to draft clearer maps for MTFP’s readers this week. Despite several rounds of calls and emails with district officials, I ultimately had to leave the location of current attendance boundaries off the maps I produced for inclusion in JoVonne’s coverage.The challenge, Assistant Superintendent Josh McKay said, is that the district doesn’t have a GIS technician on staff. He also said the address lookup service is run by a third-party company that doesn’t make it easy to export data for mapping purposes.“We basically have to pay outside sources to make a map if we want one,” McKay said. — Eric Dietrich Might Be Fun  Los Angeles-based singer Michael Mayo will perform at the Myrna Loy Jan. 22. Mayo, whose genre is described as a blend of RB and traditional jazz, was featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert last September. His recent album “Fly” is nominated for two Grammy awards. The show will be from 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased on Myrna’s website. The post Proposal would turn Hawthorne into community center appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less